Ted Stevens hates transparency
The earmark bandit has been caught! Yesterday, I suggested that Ted Stevens may have been the annonymous senator who that was specifically designed to deter lawmakers from secretly adding pork into their bills. It would create a national database that monitors every bill on the Senate floor, especially those with earmarks. The public list would also contain the name of the senators that added the pork and the special interest groups that would benefit.
Due to Stevens' checkered past, it didn't take a genius to guess that he might have had something to do with the roadblock. As it turns out, according to The Times Record newspaper in Arkansas via , Stevens has been outed by Tom Coburn (R-OK):
One of the senators most criticized for hispersonal projects, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has a hold of his own onCoburn’s bill to make public the spending patterns of the government.Called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, thelegislation calls for the creation of a database open to the publicwhere citizens can track government spending.
“He’s the only senator blocking it,†Coburn said of Stevens.
There you have it! So one senator, Ted Stevens, is desperate to deter accountability and transparency. This is not a matter of a clear majority siding with Ted Stevens, or even a small minority for that matter. Mr. Stevens is on his own, and his Republican Party is too stubborn to put a leash on him. If you recall, Stevens was the senator who in 2005 secretly into a budget bill to build a highway in Alaska that connected to two towns: one with a population 8,900, and the other with only 50 people. As a result of bills like this, Alaska ranks number one in federal per capita spending.
(It should be noted that Ted Stevens is also the one who, on the Senate floor, said that the internet is ".")
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